This invention relates to programming electronic devices and, in particular, a method and apparatus for rapidly and easily programming a cellular telephone.
Advances in technology have resulted in cellular telephones with an ever increasing range of programmable features. Such programmable features include, for example, programmable personal directories, timers, tone controls, volume controls, security features, system operation, multiple selectable service providers and phone numbers, etc. Additionally, competing cellular telephone products are often successfully promoted on the basis of their ease of programming, even though versatility, usability, functionality and other important attributes of a properly programmed cellular telephone are sacrificed to ease of the programming process. Although much consideration has been given to the ease of programming cellular telephones, the fact remains that a majority of cellular telephone users only utilize a fraction of the available programmable features. Those who do attempt to take advantage of these features are often discouraged by the lengthy instruction manuals and the cumbersome nature of entering data on the diminutive keypad found on most cellular telephones. As a result, most programming features are never used nor enjoyed, and consumer frustration over programming cellular telephones results which leads to diminished brand loyalty, reduced satisfaction of the product and even a negative opinion of electronic technology in general.
Additionally, a similar problem exists for cellular telephone sales personnel and service providers. For activation, the cellular telephones require a NAM programming sequence which consists of a lengthy, burdensome and error prone sequence of key depresses. Further, the pressure to persuade consumers to purchase one product over another can be influenced by the seller due to the relative difficulty the seller has in setting up a newly purchased telephone. As a result, a technique for easily performing the NAM programming sequence of a cellular telephone could result in increased sales for that cellular telephone.
Accordingly, a need clearly exists for improving the process of programming electronic devices such as cellular telephones. Referring to U.S. Pat. No. 5,086,513 (the '513 patent), a digital radio communications transceiver programming apparatus and method is disclosed which is used to load personality defining information in a non-volatile EEPROM memory within a portable or mobile digital radio transceiver. The '513 patent, however, is written specifically for conventional handheld portable radios and does not attempt to address any issues involved with other communication devices such as cellular telephones. Moreover, the '513 patent describes in detail the programming features associated with handheld radios and, in fact, a majority of the text is dedicated to a thorough and tedious description of the format and navigation procedures as well as defining a primitive DOS window interface specification for the software. However, the '513 patent does not teach or discuss any aspects associated with programming a cellular telephone nor does it provide any disclosure associated with programming various features of a cellular telephone such as timers, tone controls, security features, system operation and NAM programming sequence.
Thus, a need exists for improving the process of programming cellular telephones. Accordingly, the present invention describes a method and apparatus for programming cellular telephones with a personal computer or other computing device for greatly simplifying the process of programming the cellular telephone. As a result, the amount of time required to program a cellular telephone is greatly reduced, while the number of errors encountered during the programming process is minimized.